Recent Update Glitches Windows 'Alt-Tab' Shortcut

A recent Windows 10 update appears to have broken the Alt-Tab feature. Thankfully there's a simple fix that doesn't involve compromising security or performance.

Holding down the Alt button and then hitting Tab is one of the more long-standing and useful Windows keyboard shortcuts. For those who've somehow missed out, it lets users quickly switch between open windows, including those not currently visible at the foreground.

In later editions of Windows, including Windows 10, the shortcut displays a small image of every open windows showing its current content. That's useful when running two or more windows of the same application, for example when having multiple documents open in a word processor.

Full Screen Windows Fail

Unfortunately the feature appears to be broken for some users by two recent updates including the main August update that's codenamed KB5005033 by Microsoft. The affected users are finding that if they try to cycle through tabs that include a window running in full screen mode, they'll either wind up with a blank screen or on the desktop. (Source: lifehacker.com)

One way to get round this is to simply uninstall the latest update, which can be done in the "Update & Security" section of the Windows Settings tool. That's not an ideal solution at all as this also removes any benefits from the update, which is particularly significant given KB5005033 includes security fixes.

News And Interests Behind Blip

Another option involves the new News and Interests feature in Windows, which seems the best bet for the root cause of the problem. It's designed as a personalized display of live news, weather, traffic and other information and appears when hovering over a weather icon in the taskbar. (Source: techradar.com)

To remove the feature, users can right-click on the taskbar (at the bottom of the screen). The next step may vary depending on the setup, but 'News and Interest' will appear either as its own entry or under 'Taskbar Settings'. From here, users can simply choose the 'Turn Off' option.

What's Your Opinion?

Have you experienced this problem? Do you use Alt-Tab frequently? Should Microsoft cut down the number of new features it adds to reduce the risk of breaking existing features?